The California Coaches Association (CCA) recently awarded Malibu High School water polo coach Mike Mulligan with its 2015-2016 Coach of the Year Award. The CCA honors one coach for each sport with the award, along with one athletic director and one assistant coach.
Mulligan has been coaching for 30 years, 25 of which he has spent at MHS. In that time, he has coached the Sharks to 18 league titles, three CIF runner-up finishes and one CIF championship.
“I have been so fortunate to have great players come to MHS who have been capable, consistent, dedicated and show a love for the game,” Mulligan said. “I have been able to be a part of these young men’s lives and help them grow and become good water polo players.”
Mulligan’s coaching philosophy centers around making workouts as hard as he can based on his players’ abilities, while keeping practices fun.
“We make certain parts of drills competitive and I give awards here and there if they compete well,” he described. “I really try to stress fundamentals and teamwork. The kids have to enjoy themselves or they won’t put their heart and soul into the game.”
One lesson Mulligan said he has learned over the years is that it is important to set standards and goals, but also to be flexible in day to day coaching.
“If something is not working, don’t beat a dead horse,” he said. “Change the drill.”
Mulligan said he noticed a change in recent years — his players take on more extracurricular responsibilities than they had in the past.
“I have to learn to be flexible and let them partake in their other activities,” he said. “Back in the day, kids only participated in one or two sports. The biggest challenge is working with each player individually.”
Mulligan advises his players juggling other commitments to practice good time management and stresses that they will have to occasionally make tough decisions.
“The best thing to do is time management and trying to pick which activity you can miss that won’t send you far behind,” he said. “They need to understand that, if they do miss practices and games, there will be consequences, but that they made a decision they need to stand by and not get upset.”
Though many of his athletes partake in other activities, Mulligan said he has seen a large increase in the number of kids participating in the sport of water polo over the past four to five years. He also said that girls’ water polo has skyrocketed.
“We’re seeing a lot more year-round club teams so kids have more opportunities to play year round,” he said. “I see [players] making a more concerted effort to do as much as they can to improve their ability by participating in camps and clubs.”
He also added that the sport has shown an increasing turnover rate in recent years, with several former national team members and Olympians returning to take on coaching roles.
Mulligan has seen several of his former players to return to the Malibu to coach as well, which he emphasized as one of his biggest success stories.
“My biggest memories are with some of the kids I gave the biggest consequences to. The kids I set really strict boundaries with are the kids who have come back and become assistant coaches,” Mulligan said.
With boys water polo season beginning in August, Mulligan and the Sharks are facing challenges of a young team and a tough lineup, as they will be moved from up from Division 6 to Division 3 due to CIF reassignments.
“We graduated five seniors, so our team is very young, but they’ll be very skilled and talented,” he said. “Our goal is to repeat as league champions and get to the semifinals next year. Division 3 is a very competitive division, and we’re looking forward to the challenge of competing with some great teams.”